Category Archives: New Utopia

Ad will collapse in seconds CLOSE tinder August 3, 2017 08/03/2017 2:38 pm By Dee Lockett and Maya Robinson Share Swipe right.

Attention Icelandic singles: Bjrk is on the market. In her new Dazed cover story, shes revealed that her mysterious, just-announced next album will tackle subject matter with the potential to be even more tragic than the dissolution of the relationship she mourned on her last album. Dont look now, but Bjrks been swiping right. This is like my Tinder album, she explains. Tinder! Album! She continues: I set myself up with the last album being a heartbreak album, so everyones gonna be like, Are you married? with this one. But its too fragile still. I think, if I could, Id just say this is my dating album. Lets just leave it there. But Bjrk, a mere visitor among us earthlings, appears to be looking for love in the most hopeless place this planet has to offer. Its about that search [for utopia] and about being in love, she says. Spending time with a person you enjoy on every level is obviously utopia, you know? I mean, its real. Its when the dream becomes real.

Three seconds spent on Tinder will tell anyone utopia is the last thing youd discover on that godforsaken app. But for the sake of Bjrks happiness and sanity weve taken it upon ourselves to play matchmaker and give her profile a deserved signal boost. Behold: Bjrks completely authentic Tinder bios. And please, serious inquiries only.

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The shows penultimate episode is a celebration of its bang-up ensemble.

Was the movie hurt commercially by an intensifying backlash?

From one corrupt White House adviser to another.

Aaron Sorkin: Some day Id love to revisit [The West Wing], but its not going to happen right now.

If youd like to know why Jenner wore a MAGA hat, allow her to provide a lengthy, rather strange explanation.

For seven episodes!

Dont worry, Big Little Lies got some love, too.

Yeah, wed watch it.

His wish is one of death.

How oddly fitting.

I like you because youre the white one.

This is one way to market a show.

You get exactly the time they give you. If they say two hours, they say two hours. Right down to the second.

His story on Jimmy Kimmel Live! spiraled out of control.

Mel and Sue to break out their Franglish and their Pep Le Pew accents.

While the presidents away, the renovators will play keep out.

It came down to a rule technicality.

Youll listen to it via his Xstream streaming service, obviously.

Theyve got the coordinated umbrella opening down.

Issa Rae, Jerrod Carmichael, Lil Rel, Tessa Thompson, Tiffany Haddish, Lakeith Stanfield, and Hannibal Buress are all there.

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Is the World Ready for Bjrk's 'Tinder Album'? - Vulture

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Optic cable connected to a single patch panel.

A longstanding principle of the Utah Taxpayers Association is if a service can be found in the yellow pages, then government shouldnt be providing it. We have seen far too many times where government attempts to compete with the private sector and ends up wasting taxpayer money. One prime example of this is the failed UTOPIA boondoggle that continues to plague the 11 cities that created the entity.

On Aug. 14, the Utah Infrastructure Agency, which was created in 2011 to give UTOPIA more borrowing capacity, will vote on taking out a $13 million bond to further build out the UTOPIA network in hopes of making the whole effort profitable. The vote will likely pass but the effort to make UTOPIA and UIA a success for taxpayers will never be realized.

This attempt to continue to send money after a bad idea has to stop. The private sector is already providing the same service that can be obtained through UTOPIA and it is past time that the local governments that created this mess find a way out.

Recently, the University of Pennsylvania released a study that examined 20 municipally owned fiber networks from across the nation; UTOPIA was included in the study. The report found that a majority of these networks struggle to recover the costs that were incurred to build them. It went on to show that of the 20 projects, only nine have had a positive revenue stream but that of those nine, five are generating returns so small that it would take more than 100 years for the project costs to be recovered. Only two of the 20 networks are expected to earn enough to cover their project costs during the useful life of the networks.

The Penn report went on to state that these government-owned ventures struggle to ever make a profit and put taxpayers in danger of seeing their local government increase debt, lose bond rating status and elected officials becoming distracted from other important issues because they are solely focused on the governments fiber business. The report found that if UTOPIA continues in its current state, that the project will likely never turn a profit. It observed in a five-year span from 2010-2014 that the network only obtained 11,000 subscribers and that with a low subscription take the network was realizing less than $30 in revenue per household in the cities that make up UTOPIA. That is well below the $446 per household benchmark achieved by other projects that the report looked at.

I am often asked why the Utah Taxpayers Association cares so deeply about the UTOPIA issue. One statement from the Penn report sums up why we have taken the position we have as the report states, Many cities managing these projects have faced defaults, reductions in bond ratings, and ongoing liability, not to mention the toll that troubled municipal broadband ventures can take on city leaders in terms of personal turmoil and distraction from other matters important to citizens. City leaders should carefully assess all of these costs and risks before permitting a municipal fiber program to go forward.

The risks and consequences are too much for taxpayers to shoulder. UTOPIA and UIA officials should vote against the upcoming $13 million bond and start looking for new directions to take the network that will be beneficial for taxpayers instead of continually investing money into a sinking ship that will never be sea-worthy.

Billy Hesterman is the vice president of the Utah Taxpayers Association.

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Op-ed: Stop investing taxpayer dollars on a failed project - Deseret News

But of course there are counterarguments. Immigration may hurt the wages of high school dropouts, but it offers modest economic benefits to most natives, and obvious benefits to the immigrants themselves. And some of the trends that worry immigration skeptics have improved over the last decade. Illegal immigration from Mexico and points south has slowed substantially since the mid-2000s. The future of immigration looks more Asian than Latin American. Conservative fears of a disappearing southern border or an ever-expanding Spanish-speaking underclass should be tempered somewhat by these shifts.

Moreover, as writers like Robert VerBruggen of National Review and Lyman Stone at The Federalist have pointed out, you can address many of the costs of mass immigration by embracing the new bills points system without also making its steep cuts.

Thats because a system that focused more on skills and education and job prospects would automatically put less pressure on wages at the bottom. It would increase immigrations economic benefits, and reduce its fiscal costs. And it would presumably bring in a more diverse pool of migrants, making balkanization and self-segregation less likely.

So thats probably the immigration compromise were waiting for: a version of the Cotton-Perdue points system, the shift to high-skilled recruitment, that keeps the overall immigration rate close to where it is today.

But there are two obvious impediments.

The first problem is that the Cotton-Perdue proposal is associated with a president whose ascent was darkened by race-baiting, and whose ability to broker any deal is seriously in doubt. By making immigration central to his campaign, Trump helped make this bill possible. But his campaign rhetoric also makes it more polarizing than its substance deserves, and his incompetence makes its legislative prospects dim.

The second problem is that mainstream liberalism has gone a little bit insane on immigration, digging into a position that any restrictions are ipso facto racist, and any policy that doesnt take us closer to open borders is illegitimate and un-American.

Thats how we got the strange spectacle of CNNs Jim Acosta, ostensibly a nonpartisan reporter, hectoring the White Houses Stephen Miller last week with the claim that Emma Lazaruss poem about the huddled masses means that the U.S. cannot be self-interested in screening new arrivals.

It was a telling moment, as was Acostas self-righteousness afterward. Liberalism used to recognize the complexities of immigration; now it sees only a borderless utopia waiting, and miscreants and racists standing in the way.

As long as these problems persist a right marred by bigotry, a liberalism maddened by utopianism it is hard to imagine a reasonable deal.

But as long as a deal eludes us, the chaotic system we have is well designed to make both derangements that much more powerful, both problems that much worse.

See the rest here:

An Elusive Immigration Compromise - New York Times

What or where is Utopia, that perfect world described by Sir Thomas More who also coined the word in his book of that name, published in 1516?

And what has it got to do with football commentator John Motson and Newcastles Town Moor?

The answers to these and many other Utopia-related questions will be found in the new Utopia season of programmes on BBC Four, and particularly in the three-part series called Utopia: In Search Of The Dream which starts on Tuesday, August 8.

The latter is presented by art historian Richard Clay, professor of digital humanites at Newcastle University, and in the past few months it has taken him on a whirlwind tour of Britain, the United States, Lithuania and Belarus.

Its not very glamorous, making TV, he jokes.

He is speaking from the Northumberland coast where he is currently on holiday. Sounds pretty utopian, I suggest. I wouldnt disagree with that, he replies.

This series of hour-long programmes started when ClearStory, an independent production company, pitched a documentary marking the centenary of the Russian Revolution to the BBC.

They kept sending them away to think of something more ambitious and eventually they came back with the idea of something around utopias. This then became a season of programmes.

Richard, who has presented previous documentaries on BBC Four, including one two years ago about the history of graffiti, was approached just before Christmas to work on Utopia: In Search Of The Dream and filming began in March.

Whichever way you look at it, this was an ambitious undertaking. Anyone who knows anything about television will know an awful lot of filming goes into making three hours of documentary.

Richard says: Episode one opens with archive footage of Obama talking about making the world a better place and then we have John Motson...

At which point I have to interrupt. Er, John Motson? On Utopia?

That was me talking about football as Utopia, says Richard.

We chose him because hes a legend. Hes got 50 years of football experience and an amazing stock of memories and he turned out to be a good choice, a serious interviewee.

He was going to football before I was born and talked about things like people streaming out of the factories and into the match where bosses and workers would suddenly be equals.

He also talked about village football where, as soon as youre on the pitch, youre all members of the team, working together and with a shared goal ideally lots of goals.

Theres something really utopian about that.

Richard says they had hoped to film Motty at a village match but had to settle for Watford FC.

And as for his own football allegiance, Richard says: I usually say Im a fan of North East football although I was born in Preston and half my family are from Sunderland.

They all supported Sunderland apart from one cousin who, as a rebellious teenager, supported Newcastle.

Also appearing in the first programme is professorial colleague Matthew Grenby, an expert on childrens literature, who was filmed at Seven Stories running a workshop about the idea of a perfect world based on Gullivers Travels.

Richard says: He was asking the kids what their version of Utopia would look like and the film crew was grinning through the whole thing.

A lot of the things they said were what youd expect, like not killing people and not stealing, but one kid said everybody must live up trees and another said everyone must like football.

So what would happen if somebody doesnt like football? Oh, said the kid, we throw them in the river.

Not all of these priceless exchanges made the final edit, warns Richard, but what remained sounds thoroughly entertaining.

The Town Moor features in the series because of Richards interest in Thomas Spence, the 18th Century radical who advocated the common ownership of land and opposed the threatened enclosure of this open green space in the 1770s.

It was when I moved to Newcastle two years ago that I realised he was a Geordie and supported the Freemen who succeeded in keeping this enormous space in the heart of the city accessible for grazing, he explains.

Im not taking sides politically. Im just observing, as a historian, that there was a vision of shared ownership of this resource and that utopian vision hasnt been compromised, although I suspect generations of people have had to keep defending the moor.

The film crew, mostly up from the south, couldnt believe what they were seeing. What on earth is this in the middle of the city with cows grazing on it?

Sir Thomas More, whose political satire Utopia started it all, features in the series.

We filmed in a monastery, says Richard, because Mores idea of Utopia, where there is no private property, was thought to have been inspired by monastic living.

But in what was clearly a wide-ranging exploration, there is also room for an interview with a Wikipedia boss, Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols, architect Norman Foster, whose firm designed Sage Gateshead , and composer Steve Reich.

The big competing ideologies of the 20th Century Communism, Capitalism and Fascism are all covered, hence those trips to the Baltic states which have felt the effects of all three.

And that might sound rather depressing, considering the cost in human lives.

But Richard says his exploration of historys utopias ends on a positive note.

The final programme ends up saying a recurring theme throughout history and across human societies and cultures is this urge to create a better, more equal way of life.

Despite the endless challenges in attempting to make it happen, we keep on trying and theres something really heartwarming and optimistic about that.

And with that hes away to enjoy his break in the county which he has chosen to make his home.

Ive been here for two years and Ive got no intention of leaving, he says.

Beautiful deserted beaches, incredibly friendly and generous people and the Town Moor!

He makes it sound rather utopian.

The first part of Utopia: In Search Of The Dream is screened on Tuesday (August 8) at 9pm on BBC Four.

See the rest here:

Why John Motson, Seven Stories and Newcastle Town Moor are in a new TV series about Utopia - ChronicleLive

The playing field, however, is hardly even: In July, Mr. Rouhanis brother was arrested on corruption charges. He was later released on bail, but the prospect of his humiliating imprisonment could be used by the principlists to pressure Mr. Rouhani.

President Trump, surrounded by advisers seemingly determined to take a harder stance toward Iran, is reportedly seeking a pretext to eviscerate the 2015 nuclear accord. In lock step with Congress, the Trump administration has already moved to intensify sanctions and has vowed to aggressively counter Irans regional policies and ballistic missile activities.

Seen from Tehran, the signs are unmistakable: From its efforts to erect a Sunni arc to curb Irans purported Shiite crescent in the Levant to repeated hints about regime change, this administration is intent on confronting Iran, depriving it of the nuclear deals economic dividends and seeking to unseat its rulers.

There is no reason to believe that the Trump administration will succeed where its six predecessors faltered. And in that sense Irans rulers have little to worry about.

Of greater concern are the American policies unintended consequences. Escalation against Iran is bound to deepen the insecure countrys siege mentality; rising tensions will feed Irans militarism and militancy; and squeezing Iran will diminish Mr. Rouhanis maneuvering space.

All of this will bolster the principlists defeated time after time in local and national elections and enable them to regain politically what they lost electorally. They could exploit the external threat as pretext to obstruct the governments agenda, hinder economic reintegration to preserve their own interests, label critics as foreign agents, and fuel apathy and dissatisfaction to ensure their rivals defeat in the next elections. While the United States is incapable of empowering Iranian pragmatists, midwifing a principlist consolidation now would be a grave mistake.

The biggest losers in all of this, of course, will be the Iranian people. They pursued utopia in 1979 and know full well the cost of revolutionary change. Since then, they have grasped at the highly imperfect electoral straws of Irans constitutional theocracy, hoping for a gradual evolution toward a more open economy and pluralistic polity. Given a limited choice, they endorsed Mr. Rouhanis platform of diplomatic engagement with the West and banked that it would produce at least some modest improvements.

Instead, they have been paid back with the Trump administrations travel ban, its callous blaming of Iran after the Islamic States attack in Tehran in June and policies that will embolden the very forces they rebuked at the ballot box.

In 1953, the United States helped engineer a coup against an Iranian government that represented a nascent democratic movement a decision that boomeranged, fueling anti-American rancor and contributing to the rupture between the two countries a quarter-century later when zealots stormed the American Embassy in Tehran.

There is a lesson in that for the Trump administration.

Mr. Rouhani is not an ideal partner for Washington, and Iran under his helm would not pursue policies to Americas liking. The United States can intelligently push back against aggressive Iranian behavior in the region, and it can legitimately insist on rigorous enforcement of the nuclear accord.

But to escalate regional tensions, deepen sectarian rifts, undermine the nuclear agreement, pursue regime change and eschew all diplomatic engagement would be a hazardous affair. The Trump administration risks tilting Irans internal dynamics in the wrong direction at a pivotal moment, once again bringing the countrys democratic struggle to grief and breeding another generation of enemies.

Ali Vaez is the senior Iran analyst for the International Crisis Group.

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A version of this op-ed appears in print on August 5, 2017, in The International New York Times.

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Rouhani 2.0 vs. the Hawks in Washington and Tehran - New York Times

It's tricky to imagine now but in the years immediately before and after the Russian Revolution, there was an absolute belief in Moscow and beyond that a utopian society was achievable.

The Bolshevik visionof a socialist, egalitarian world was not a lofty, impossible ideal: a classless society with equal rights for all seemed like a real alternative.

A group of artists, driven by these heady, noble ideas, were determined to create a new movement, a form of art of the people and for the people. The movement would become known as constructivism and their work and vision was in keeping with the revolutionary spirit of the time.

Driven by a social agenda of inclusivity, practicality and utilitarianism, the constructivists made art inspired by cubism, which was abstract, made use of bold colour and was meant to challengeconventional ideas about creativity.

Their work ranged across mediums, includingpainting and sculpture, photography,textiles and the graphic arts as well as stage and costume design.

It was this versatility that helped tomakethe Russian constructivists'contribution so remarkable and enduring, according to the co-curators of Call of the Avant-Garde - Constructivism and Australian Art at Heide Museum of Modern Art.

Sue Cramer and Lesley Harding say the movement focused on art's role in the new society, rather than aesthetics.Traditional ideas of art were denounced as "individualistic, subjective and bourgeois".

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For this reason, many of the original constructivists abandoned media such as painting and sculpture, in favour of what we would now call "design". Their thinking was that art should have a practical purpose andtheir work was used in posters and brochures promoting the cause as well as textile design andthe painting of buildings, trains and ships.

As Cramer and Harding concede, it is a complex movement to define. The name takes in several phases,the first of which is the Russian artists working together after the revolution, mainly based in Moscow. Working in 1920 and 1921, this group decided to takeart into the factories and onto the streets, in an effort to integrate art into everyday life.

Key names includedVladimir Tatlin, Alexander Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, the Stenberg brothers, KonstantineMedunetskii, Karl Ioganson and AleksaiGan.

Up until the 1970s, constructivism generally referred more to the international movement that was inspired by the Russians, rather than the Russian artists themselves.

For the Heide show, Cramer says, the first body of research involved "sharpening our knowledge of what constructivism was, so we could speak about how its ideas have been picked up."

"[We] needed to be clear on that before we tackle the idea of how Australian artists were influenced, given the influence came via a second wave.A number of Russian artists had largely left Moscow and disseminated ideas of constructivism through Europe, especially the UK but also in France and Germany."

It was not untilthe 1930s and '40s that Australian artists started using the term to describe their work. Cramer and Harding say the local emphasis was onthe movement's principles such as geometric abstraction, rather than any ideological or philosophical aims.

At that point, the Russian artists were still largely unknown, hidden behind the Iron Curtain, so it was through the prism of other international artists that the movement was discovered here. Abstract painters,largelyin Sydney, such as Frank Hinder, RalphBastonand Gordon Andrews were the first to adopt the name, largelyinfluencedby artists in Britain and the US.

Later generations of Australian artists worked locally and overseas with proponents of the ideas underlying constructivism. German-born Inge King, for example, worked in Britain in the late 1940s along with Leonard French and then emigrated to Australia in 1951, bringing with her a wide experience of European art. Lenton Parr worked with sculptor Henry Moore in England, where he started to construct sculpture with machine parts. King and Parr later founded Melbourne's Centre Five group, advocates of abstract art and art with a social purpose.

Cramer says the constructivistidea of utopianism and art into production arecurrent ideas and warrant further investigation.

Timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Russian Revolution in October this year,Call of the Avant-Garde: Constructivism and Australian Artfeatures more than 200 works.Pieces by Australian artists such as RalphBalson,IngeKing, Robert Owen, Rose Nolan and ZoeCroggonare shown alongsideBritish constructivistsBen Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth, aswell asworks by key figuresfrom the original Russian movement including AlexanderRodchenko, AlexandraExterand ElLissitzky.

The idea for the showin part came when Cramer andHarding worked onCubism and Australian artin 2009. Their research unearthed an incredible volume of material;Constructivism is the third in a series examining modernism, together withLess is More: Minimalism and Post Minimalism.

"The excitement of new formal discoveries, the integration of ideas across the various art forms, and the strong role taken by women artists who, unusually for the time, were considered equal to the men, are just some of the inspiring features of Russian constructivism that continue to resonate today," says Cramer.

The state of the world, interestingly, has also given a new currency to this hugelyinfluential movement. Cramer argues that constructivism has a particular relevancebecause of key developments in global politics in recent times:"people are looking at different ways to create a better world".

Even if today's artists are largely sceptical about the possibility of any genre of politics creatinga utopia, their aims no doubt often align with the original constructivistobjective of creating a better world.

Call of the Avant-Garde: Constructivism and Australian Art runs until October 8. heide.com.au

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Call of the Avant-Garde: Constructivism at Heide fuels visions of a new utopia - The Sydney Morning Herald

Posted August 4th, 2017 at 11:00 am (UTC-4)

An illustration projected on a screen shows a robot hand and a human one moving towards each others during the AI for Good Global Summit at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland, June 7, 2017. (Reuters)

Hardly a day goes by without news about a breakthrough in machine intelligence or some debate about its pros and cons, more recently between Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla Motors Elon Musk. Adding his voice to the mix, author and IT specialist Peter Scott warns that rapid AI growth comes with serious risks that, if mitigated, could take humanity to a new level of consciousness.

If we build ethical artificial intelligence and it becomes superintelligent, it could become our partner

In Crisis of Control: How Artificial SuperIntelligences May Destroy or Save the Human Race, Scott, a former contractor with NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, argues that there are two risks associated with rapid AI development. If these dangers are successfully mitigated, they will propel us into a new utopia, he said. Failing that, they could lead to the destruction of the human race.

FILE Product and graphic designer Ricky Ma, 42, poses with his life-size robot Mark 1, modeled after a Hollywood star, in Hong Kong, China, March 31, 2016. (Reuters)

The first risk is that AI could put biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction in the hands of average people so that someone in their garage could create a killer virus that could wipe out millions of people.

The second is that as the technology becomes more prevalent, someone could accidentally or deliberately cause a disaster through internet networks connecting global infrastructure. This crisis of control, as he calls it, is whether we can control what we create.

Will we be able to control the results of this technology, the technology itself? he asked. Theres always been a debate about technology going back to at least the atom bomb, if not the sword, but the further we get, the more volatility there is because of the large-scale potential effects of this technology.

There have been multiple revolutions throughout history that changed the way people lived and worked. But Scott said this time is different.

Where do we go from there? Whats left? There really isnt much room about that in what you would call a hierarchy.

FILE A woman inputs orders for a robot which works as a waitress in a restaurant in Xian, Shaanxi Province, China, April 20, 2016. (Reuters/China Stringer network)

One could argue that humans still need to program and maintain their intelligent machines. But that is also a knowledge-transfer function, said Scott. The point at which machines learn that job will transform the world in an instant because they will do it much, much faster. And the big question is when will that happen?

That could be in 10 or 50 years. Whenever it happens, humans need to come up with a new basis for employment that hasnt been done by machines, he said. And its very hard to see what that might be in an era where machines can think as well as a human being.

Alarm bells already are sounding off about the risks of automation to human workers. Scott predicts AI will take over jobs traditionally associated with the pinnacle of employment development such as chief executive officer, chief technology officer, and chief finance officer. It will take longer to automate jobs like therapists and psychologists that require sensory skills, and acute understanding of the human psyche, grounded in human experience

But the process has already begun, with AI systems like IBMs Watson already tackling complex medical problems. And the boundaries of what we call artificial intelligence keep getting moved, he said. AI, which was little more than parlor tricks back in the 1980s, now extends to chatbots,

FILE A man takes pictures with humanoid robot Jiajia, produced by University of Science and Technology of China, at Jiajias launch event in Hefei, Anhui province, April 15, 2016. Jiajia can converse with humans and imitate facial expressions, among other features. (Reuters/China Stringer Network)

humanoids like Chinas Jiajia robot, and voice assistants holding a conversation with humans the stuff of science fiction.

Science fiction writers have already tackled some of these dilemmas. In the 1940s, prominent science fiction writer and biochemist Isaac Asimov introduced the Three Laws of Robotics to govern the creation and ethics of intelligent machines.

There are similar efforts underway to create a set of AI ethics. In January, a group of AI experts came up with The Asilomar Principles, 23 statements they agreed upon on how to create ethical artificial intelligence.

But its not just about ethics. A new renaissance of the study of the human heart is needed, said Scott, to deal with the threats of not just machine intelligence but people who could wreak havoc if they get their hands on this technology. Given enough attention and funding, he said the next revolution will be in human consciousness.

His hope is that professions that repair wounds in the human heart will evolve in partnership with an ethical AI to develop medicines more quickly and cure cancer, disease, aging, and perhaps have something to teach us in psychology, in philosophy, ethics as well.

If we do that, then we will be able to coexist on a planet that has a new species of silicon beings that are many times more intelligent than us.

Originally posted here:

'Crisis of Control': AI Risks Could Lead to Utopia or Destruction - Voice of America (blog)

Yesterday, Icelandic icon Bjrk announced that her new album, which'll be the first since her 2015 'Vulnicura' record, is coming soon.

Following up on the brief social media announcement, Bjrk dives further into the inspirations and thoughts behind the album in a new interview with Dazed.

This is like my Tinder record, she says before explaining further that the album is about "being in love. Spending time with a person you enjoy on every level is obviously utopia. I mean, its real. Its when the dream becomes real.

Her 2015 release, she explains, was very much a "heartbreak album", influenced by her divorce from artist Matthew Barney. Addressing the rumors upfront, Bjrk explains that this album is more like a "dating album" as she continues to rebuild after the separation.

Beyond her own personal experiences, Bjrk also mentions that the album is undoubtedly tied into the world's current controversies. Maybe thats why it became a utopian theme if were gonna survive not only my personal drama but also the sort of situation the world is in today, weve got to come up with a new plan, she said. If we dont have the dream, were just not gonna change. Especially now, this kind of dream is an emergency.

Read the original here:

Bjrk on her utopian new album: "This is my Tinder record about being in love" - Mixmag

Yesterday, Bjrk announced that her new album would be coming out very soon. While little is known about the upcoming release, Bjrk has revealed in a new interview with Dazed that it will be her Tinder record. She goes on to explain that the album is about being in love. Spending time with a person you enjoy on every level is obviously utopia. She adds, I mean, its real. Its when the dream becomes real. Comparing it to her previous album, 2015s Vulnicura, she said, I set myself up with the last album being a heartbreak album, so everyones gonna be like, Are you married? with this one. But... its too fragile still. I think, if I could, Id just say this is my dating album. Lets just leave it there.

Elsewhere in the interview, Bjrk discusses her continuing collaboration with Arca as the strongest musical relationship [shes] had, comparing it to Joni Mitchells records with Jaco Pastorius in the 70s. The article also reveals that video artist Andrew Thomas Huangwho directed the Vulnicura clips for Family, Stonemilker, and Black Lakeis working on a new video for her song The Gate, featuring a bespoke dress designed by Guccis Alessandro Michele and a headpiece by regular collaborator James Merry. The interview also features questions from Mitski, Michel Gondry, the Haxan Cloak, Jenny Hval, Eileen Myles, and more. Bjrks Dazed cover is on sale today.

Revisit Pitchforks 2015 interview with Bjrk. Watch her new Notget video:

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Bjrk Says New Album Is Her Tinder Record - Pitchfork

Russian journalist and economist Alexander Sokolov is facing prison time for his activist and journalist investigations. Source: Rot Front. Since November 2016, the corridors of Moscows Tverskoy district court have been filled with elderly citizens, loudly discussing conspiracy theories, the fate of the Soviet Union and the significance of Stalin. Waiting outside the courtroom, they exchange comments with officers of the court before finally being allowed inside, when they promptly occupy all the seats. Two tall women, dressed in their prosecutor blues, follow them into the court, where three men Kirill Barabash, Valery Parfyonov and Alexander Sokolov are standing trial. Yuri Mukhin sits next to them, and this is the case against Army of the Peoples Will.

Mukhin is a prominent political writer, who began his career back in the early 1990s. In 1995, he began publishing the Duel newspaper, which, in its various iterations, took Stalinist and anti-Zionist approaches to Russias political and social problems. Later, Mukhins most active followers joined his organisation Army of the Peoples Will (AVN), which sought to, among other tasks, enforce the direct responsibility of Russias politicians to the people: AVN tried to conduct a referendum on changes to Russias Constitution permitting public officials and parliamentarians to be punished, should the people wish it. Its completely legal to want a referendum, but in 2010 AVN was declared an extremist organisation and banned. In effect, this court decision meant that any further activity by AVN was subject to criminal prosecution.

At one point, though, an initiative group on conducting a referendum (under the name For responsible authorities, or ZOV) was set up in parallel with AVN this group had the same basic idea and the same people behind it. If you compare the leaflets they published, the symbols they used and their demands, these two organisations were similar to the point where you couldnt tell them apart.

Yuri Mukhin, speaking in 2009. Source: Denis Lobko / Wikipedia.

You can interpret Mukhins clear intention to continue the activities of AVN under a new guise in various ways.

The officers of the Moscow Centre for Combating Extremism and police investigators interpreted it clearly, however and in line with Article 282.2 of Russias Criminal Code (Continuing the activities of an extremist organisation, banned by a court decision).

In summer 2015, the Russian security services searched apartments belonging to members of the organisation, and detained Mukhin, who was sat in his trunks on a Crimean beach at the time. (Mukhin, who admires the USSR, supported the annexation of Crimea in 2014.) Two of Mukhins followers, Valery Parfyonov and former military officer Kirill Barabash, also wound up in custody.

Whats important here is the fact that a journalist is being prosecuted for his activist past

Enter Alexander Sokolov, a journalist for leading Russian politics and business news agency RBC and a strange addition to this cast. Just before his arrest, Sokolov, who covered Russias state corporations, published a lengthy investigation into corruption at the Vostochny cosmodrome, a flagship project for the Kremlin.

It soon became clear that Sokolov does have some past involvement with Mukhin and his organisation though, truth be told, its not clear how closely he really knows them. The criminal case assigns Sokolov the role of administrator for the initiative groups website, which apparently promoted extremist materials online. Indeed, the final prosecution documents devote only a single sentence to Sokolov.

Vostochnyi Cosmodrome, visited here by Vladimir Putin in September 2014, has been plagued by wage arrears and allegations of embezzlement at the subcontractor level. Source: Kremlin.ru. During the investigation and trial, the RBC journalist has insisted that he left his activist days behind him in 2013, when he defended his PhD and began working as a journalist. Sokolovs dissertation focused on the inefficient use of funds during projects carried out by some of Russias major state corporations Rosnano, Olimpstroi, Rosatom and Rostec. The management of Rostec, a powerful state corporation that is closely allied to the Kremlin, studied Sokolovs work and, according to the journalist, they were not pleased with its contents. Sokolov insists that he was arrested because of his journalistic and research work.

Of course, the investigators knew that Sokolovs views and acquaintances have changed. He himself could have tried to put some distance between himself and the strange Stalinists hes being tried with, but he didnt surrender his former comrades even when they called themselves citizens of the USSR and spoke about the emergence of a fascist regime in Russia. The trial, which is due for sentencing on 10 August, has been long and difficult: hours were spent discussing absurd petitions raised by the defendants; dozens of requests for the judge and prosecutors to recuse themselves; a vocal support group that, on occasion, came to (minor) blows with officers of the court; the judges voice often rising to a shout.

Russias fight against extremism is being conducted so successfully that anyone, even someone who believes in utopia, can wind up in court

Nevertheless, Alexander Sokolov faces up to eight years in prison on extremism charges, and now the trial is at an end hes been mostly forgotten though not by his colleagues. At the end of 2015, RBC journalist Mikhail Rubin asked Vladimir Putin about the fate of Sokolov. The editorial team were concerned about the effect on freedom of expression. The president promised to look into, though no change in the prosecution has been registered. A year later, Putin was asked once again about Sokolov. He responded: Most likely my administration has looked into it, and if the case has made it to court, then that means everything isnt quite so simple. But Ill look into it again.

Prior to the pleadings, when the prosecutors office asked for Sokolov to be sentenced to four years in general regime prison, Russias independent Union of Journalists published an open letter, in which 282 signatories (after the number of the article of Russias Criminal Code) called the case against the journalist uncivilised, and requested it to be closed. The Memorial Human Rights Center has declaredMukhin, Parfyonov and Sokolov political prisoners.

To assert that the charges against Alexander Sokolov are connected with his journalism would be an exaggeration. Whats more important here is the fact that a journalist is being prosecuted for his activist past. Nevertheless, Russian law enforcement has long worked to restrict freedom of expression in society the numbers of criminal cases for reposts on social media and offhand comments on blogs speaks to this.

Russias fight against extremism which is, on the whole, the fight against freedom of expression is being conducted so successfully that anyone, even someone who believes in utopia, can wind up in court.

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Four years in prison for utopia - Open Democracy